A week in yearbooks - 10th grade

add-a-bead necklaces were really popular

tennis team!

Spanish club, La Tertulia

Jane Hill, a sweet friend who currently lives in Louisiana and has horses

The Spanish club got to go to the French Quarter for their big field trip. This was because the French Quarter had a couple of huge fires that roared through it in the late 1700's, leaving much of the buildings in ruin. The Spanish rebuilt the Quarter, so what you see when you go there is Spanish architecture. I remember having to explain this to people in the French club at school, because they didn't know why we'd be going there on our field trip. Their big excursion was a trip to the Sacré Coeur in New Orleans - ha ha, boring! I seem to recall the French club were inclined to think they were slightly more dignified than the Spanish club.

Sophomore year was a lot of fun. Going to high school was a fresh start, but being a freshman was so intimidating! The seniors were allowed to make fun of us of course. Wow, they had boyfriends and they could work the sock-hops and mingled at the pep rallies like nobody's business. Getting to 10th grade meant that you built up a little more confidence and basically, you weren't the freshmen anymore. I liked my psychology and english classes, and I liked getting my driver's license!

Back then, you could have your license when you were 15. My mom still made me ride the bus to school or catch a ride with somebody else. A couple of girls got a brand new bimmer and VW rabbit convertibles as their birthday gifts that year (a lot of oil money in the south). As a result, some high-schooly 'what really matters' lessons from Mom.

Mom would let me drive by myself to get her something at the grocery store however, and I loved that freedom and singing along to the radio - songs like True, Wrapped Around Your Finger & Missing You.

This was also the year that I got my braces off and kissed a boy named David Buras. He called one day and romantically told me that the song Hello reminded him of me. The next time I heard it on the radio I thought, that's such a sad song! Melt with You, now THAT was a romantic song!

A week in yearbooks - 5th grade

This is the year we moved from Michigan to Louisiana in the middle of 5th grade. My friend mailed my yearbook page to me. I remember being very innocent then. Our school in Michigan had just gotten computers and I was just beginning to learn how to use them. Moving to Louisiana was like night and day. Everyone called me a yankee and thought it was funny that I said "you guys" instead of "y'all". I caught on eventually. On my first day of school in Louisiana, my teacher asked me a simple yes or no question to which I responded, "Yes". With a stern voice she said to me, "Yes what"? Surprised and all eyes on me, I said "Yes" once more. She explained, "You say, 'yes m'am' or 'no m'am', do you understand"? "Yes, m'am". My english teacher, Mrs. Moore, told our class that "musk and sweat don't mix, so please boys and girls, don't wear perfume, wear deodorant". She also told us that our school had been desegregated only 10 years earlier. The kids at this school seemed a lot meaner and rowdier and bigger than the school I had come from. "Reunited" by Peaches & Herb was a popular song, and I remember a cute boy and girl in my class broke up and got back together and this was their theme song. This year was the first time in my life a couple of people called me a snob, and it was because I had just moved away from a place I loved for 4 years where my 3 best girlfriends lived across the street, and I was shy. I adapted but I feel I wasn't quite as innocent anymore. Maybe that happens at age 10 and 11 anyway. It wasn't like I started smoking cigarettes but something shifted, where I had to toughen up a bit. I guess these things simply assist you in playing that old game called Life.

A week in yearbooks - 8th grade

Madisonville Jr. High. 8th grade. I dug through my box of notes to find this:

Jamie,
My darling little flower bud! You know what I LOVE YOU!
Well aren't you proud of me, I wrote you a letter? Well how have you been?
Guess what I just got 25 cents from a rub check, aren't you happy for me?
Guess what else, you just sat down from reading your "part".
Goodie Goo Good my darling!
Mr. Pulling is pointing to his map.
We're going to have fun tonite. I hope me and David don't get in another fight.
Well I better give you this short little note.
Bye!
Your Best Friend,
Chanda Pennington

P.S. I didn't draw that picture in my math notebook. I was just kidding you.

A week in yearbooks - 6th grade

Madisonville Jr. High. 6th grade. Second year of living in Louisiana. Had crushes on Grant Howard and Brooke Lagarde. Chanda Pennington was my best friend. Sometimes enemies with Ida Wager and Gina Gitz. David Windom bought me candy at the Piggly Wiggly after school. Shane Olson was sweet on me and couldn't celebrate birthdays due to his religion. Michelle Nicholas and Trina Collins were spitfires. I rode the bus with Tommy Roe, Caren Parrish, Grant & Brooke. Scott Short was very well spoken and had a patch of white in his hair. Eugene Wager stuck a No. 2 pencil in my arm and the tip of the lead is still there and visible. Ida Wager was the first girl I knew to go to 2nd base. Caren Parrish was the first person to have shown me a Playboy magazine. Dexter Talley and Grant Howard went through a phase where they stole candy from the Piggly Wiggly and stuffed them in their tube socks. Imogene Davenport's father used to show up to her basketball games drunk, yelling and stepping over the line of the court. Later that year, Brooke Lagarde got mad at me and used Imogene as his bully. He had her break my glass-tubed roller-ball peppermint lipgloss. I tripped him in the cafeteria for revenge.